Funny... alternative kitchen shears

[MrSkimo]

LOL - me too. I ruined one pair of kitchen shears spatchcocking a 19 lb'er this year. Only got 2/3 up one side of the spine. Resorted to 10 inch knife and a lot of force.

[HC in SC]

Two words: Bubba Knife

[smarkley]

Hahahahaha! My wife is a little appalled at all this... but she finally got on the boat is talking about buying me some Corona pruners just for this purpose!

Life is good!

[(Neal)]

When I spatchcocked my 22 lb bird, I used those chicken shears recommended by MH, still tough, but doable. Breaking it was almost impossible, until I took a big knife, drove it into the breast bone inside the bird in about three places (think hammer and chisel) using the shears as a hammer. Broke really easy then.

[cut2cure]

Dang! That's a GREAT idea! Pruning shears are tough as heck! I did fine with my poultry shears, but it definitely takes some force to spatchcock these big birds!

Love the pterodactyl comment, by the way.

[fracmeister]

Yes, the spousal unit acquired said pterodactyl prior to my 14 lb practice bird turning out so well. Once I kicked the Yoder up from 225 to 325 I get a temperature near the bird within 5 degrees of that. It is wandering around from 320 to 345 sa opposed to my rock solid 225 it keeps during smoking. As the bird is warming up I am seeing even less of that wandering.

[Marauderer]

The 26 lb pterodactyl required a LOT of force...both to cut out the backbone and to break that rib cage. It is pretty huge even still. I have it in the "smoking" phase with the Yoder set on 225F. However, putting that massive cold bird in their lowered the measured oven temp from 220 to 120 and it is crawling back up. Fortunately our dinner target is "1 or 2" so I will kick it back up to 325*F after 30-45 minutes of smoking.

Frac I have found I needed to place my Mavericks close to the bird (3" away) and measure the box temp and adjust it accordingly to get my temp. Last one was 325*F. The bird turned out great and I will post pics when I do a thread on it. My first one that had the limp skin was actually around 250*F near the bird over the drip/gravy pan even though the Maverick read 325*F at the other end of the grill.. Once I figured that out I had a winner. I reviewed MH's article on the smoked turkey and when i was looking at the pictures, yes they were colored pictures, I finally figured it out.

[Jerod Broussard]

Jeez. I hate messing with birds over 15 pounds. Maybe it's because I inspect so many that are under 7 pounds. I got lucky and found a 13 pound fresh Honeysuckle.

[fracmeister]

The 26 lb pterodactyl required a LOT of force...both to cut out the backbone and to break that rib cage. It is pretty huge even still. I have it in the "smoking" phase with the Yoder set on 225F. However, putting that massive cold bird in their lowered the measured oven temp from 220 to 120 and it is crawling back up. Fortunately our dinner target is "1 or 2" so I will kick it back up to 325F after 30-45 minutes of smoking.

[Marauderer]

Thanks for the great idea Steveo. I tried to use two different pair of supposedly heavy duty kitchen scissors. Not. I ended up using my chinese cleaver but, I really like your pruning clipper idea better.

[Huskee]

Lol .

[Jerod Broussard]

hahaha.....my little red shears did fine....2 pumps of CPR and she was in the fridge.

[smarkley]

Oh yeah Jerod... next year I will use THEM!

[PenskeFile]

I dang near broke the brand new Kitchenaide shears that were delivered by Amazon today while spatchcocking my turkey. I like your idea

[Jerod Broussard]

I had to use this